Revealed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
Multiple exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – opinions on politics and personal connections.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a committed voice in the progressive media. But questions have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein responded in an exchange on 16 March. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”
Summers reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “I’ve expressed this previously: my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was a grave mistake.”
Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
